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Lovesickness refers to an affliction that can produce negative feelings when deeply in love, during the absence of a loved one or when love is unrequited.
The term "lovesickness" is rarely used in modern medicine and psychology, though new research is emerging on the impact of heartbreak on the body and mind. [1]
In the medical texts of ancient Greece and Rome, lovesickness was characterized as a "depressive" disease, "typified by sadness, insomnia, despondency, dejection, physical debility, and blinking." [2] In Hippocratic texts, "love melancholy" is expected as a result of passionate love. [3] Lovesickness could be cured through the acquisition of the person of interest, such as in the case of Prince Antiochus. [4]
In ancient literature, however, lovesickness manifested itself in "violent and manic" behavior. [2] In ancient Greece, Euripides' play Medea portrays Medea's descent into "violence and mania" as a result of her lovesickness for Jason; [5] meanwhile, in ancient Rome, Virgil's Dido has a manic reaction to the betrayal of her lover, Aeneas, and commits suicide. [6] Dido's case is especially interesting, as the cause of her lovesickness is attributed to the meddling of the gods Juno and Venus. [7]
In the Middle Ages, unrequited love was considered "a trauma which, for the medieval melancholic, was difficult to relieve." [8] Treatments included light therapy, rest, exposure to nature, and a diet of lamb, lettuce, fish, eggs, and ripe fruit. [8]
In both antiquity and the Middle Ages, lovesickness was often explained by an imbalance in the humors. An excess of black bile, the humor correlated with melancholy, was usually considered the cause. [8] [6]
In 1915, Sigmund Freud asked rhetorically, "Isn't what we mean by 'falling in love' a kind of sickness and craziness, an illusion, a blindness to what the loved person is really like?" [9]
Scientific study on the topic of lovesickness has found that those in love experience a kind of high similar to that caused by illicit drugs such as cocaine. In the brain, certain neurotransmitters — phenethylamine, dopamine, norepinephrine and oxytocin — elicit the feeling of high from "love" or "falling in love" using twelve different regions of the brain. These neurotransmitters mimic the feeling of amphetamines. [10]
On average, a psychologist does not get referrals from general practitioners mentioning "lovesickness", although this can be prevalent through the language of what the patient feels. With the common symptoms of lovesickness being related to other mental diseases, it is often misdiagnosed or it is found that with all the illnesses one could be facing, love is the underlying problem. [11] This is incredibly dangerous when one does not seek help or cannot cope because love has been known to be fatal (a consequence of which might be attempted suicide, thus dramatising the ancient contention that love can be fatal). [12]
In his book The Social Nature of Mental Illness, Len Bowers postulates that although physiological differences exist in the brains of those that are deemed "mentally ill", there are several other criteria that must be met before the differences can be called a malfunction. It is possible, therefore, that many mental illnesses (such as lovesickness) will never bear strong enough evidence to clinically warrant "legitimate" affliction by clinical standards without further correspondingly parasympathetic criteria of established dysfunction(s).
Frank Tallis, a researcher of love and lovesickness, suggests in his 2005 article that lovesickness occurs when one is "truly, madly, deeply" in love and should be taken more seriously by medical professionals. [12]
Tallis includes a list of common symptoms of lovesickness in the following:
According to Tallis, many symptoms of lovesickness can be categorized under the DSM-IV and the ICD-10. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a symptom of lovesickness because it includes a preoccupation. [12] A further study conducted by Italian psychiatrist Donatella Marazitti found that people who were in the early romantic phase of a love relationship had their serotonin levels drop to levels found in patients with OCD. This level is significantly lower than that of an average or healthy person. [13]
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet portrays the true madness of "love" and the grief that the two young, infatuated lovers feel. [14] When Romeo finds his love dead (or so he believes), with the thought of living without his "true love", the grief and depression overcomes him and he takes his own life. After waking and seeing his dead body, Juliet is overcome with despair and takes her own life.
Gothic metal songs thematize lovesickness from Medieval literary influences. "This emotional and physical distress is a key element of fin'amor that echoes into Gothic metal", according to The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism. "In particular, lovesickness was associated with desires and passions that remained unfulfilled, resulting in symptoms such as sleeplessness, sighing, and loss of appetite, all of which were considered manifestations of the mind's efforts to restrain its passions." [15]
The lyrics to American R&B singer Bilal's song "Something to Hold on To" (from the album Love for Sale ) are described as a plea to romantic devotion hastily written in a moment of lovesickness. [16]
Bob Dylan's song "Love Sick," from his 1997 album Time Out of Mind, portrays the conflicting feelings (betrayal and intense love) that come with lovesickness:
I’m sick of love…I wish I’d never met you
I’m sick of love…I’m trying to forget you
Just don't know what to do
I'd give anything to be with you— Bob Dylan, Love Sick from Time Out of Mind [17]
Melancholia or melancholy is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval, and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions.
Limerence is a state of mind resulting from romantic feelings for another person. It typically involves intrusive and melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection, along with a desire for the reciprocation of one's feelings and to form a relationship with the object of love.
Hypochondriasis or hypochondria is a condition in which a person is excessively and unduly worried about having a serious illness. Hypochondria is an old concept whose meaning has repeatedly changed over its lifespan. It has been claimed that this debilitating condition results from an inaccurate perception of the condition of body or mind despite the absence of an actual medical diagnosis. An individual with hypochondriasis is known as a hypochondriac. Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical or psychological symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be, and are convinced that they have, or are about to be diagnosed with, a serious illness.
Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a cluster C personality disorder marked by a spectrum of obsessions with rules, lists, schedules, and order, among other things. Symptoms are usually present by the time a person reaches adulthood, and are visible in a variety of situations. The cause of OCPD is thought to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors, namely problems with attachment.
Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl Balkhi was a Persian Muslim polymath: a geographer, mathematician, physician, psychologist and scientist. Born in 850 CE in Shamistiyan, in the province of Balkh, Greater Khorasan, he was a disciple of al-Kindi. He also founded the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad. Al-Balkhi is believed to have been the first to diagnose that mental illness can have psychological and physiological causes and he was the first to typify four types of emotional disorders: fear and anxiety; anger and aggression; sadness and depression; and obsessions.
Being lovestruck means having mental and physical symptoms associated with falling in love: "Love-struck ... means to be hit by love ... you are hit in your heart by the emotion of love".
Maya medicine concerns health and medicine among the ancient Maya civilization. It was a complex blend of mind, body, religion, ritual and science. Important to all, medicine was practiced only by a select few, who generally inherited their positions and received extensive education. These shamans acted as a medium between the physical world and spirit world. They practiced sorcery for the purpose of healing, foresight, and control over natural events.
Sexual obsessions are persistent and unrelenting thoughts about sexual activity. In the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), these are extremely common, and can become extremely debilitating, making the person ashamed of the symptoms and reluctant to seek help. A preoccupation with sexual matters, however, does not only occur as a symptom of OCD, they may be enjoyable in other contexts.
The Arabic word found as ḥuzn and ḥazan in the Qur'an and hüzün in modern Turkish refers to the pain and sorrow over a loss, death of relatives in the case of the Qur'an. Two schools further interpreted this feeling. The first sees it as a sign that one is too attached to the material world, while Sufism took it to represent a feeling of personal insufficiency, that one was not getting close enough to God and did not or could not do enough for God in this world. The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk in the book Istanbul further elaborates on the added meaning hüzün has acquired in modern Turkish. It has come to denote a sense of failure in life, lack of initiative and to retreat into oneself, symptoms quite similar to melancholia. According to Pamuk it was a defining character of cultural works from Istanbul after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. One may see similarities with how melancholic romantic paintings in the west sometimes used ruins from the age of the Roman Empire as a backdrop.
Islamic psychology or ʿilm al-nafs, the science of the nafs, is the medical and philosophical study of the psyche from an Islamic perspective and addresses topics in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and psychiatry as well as psychosomatic medicine. In Islam, mental health and mental illness were viewed with a holistic approach. This approach emphasized the mutual connection between maintaining adequate mental wellbeing and good physical health in an individual. People who practice Islam thought it was necessary to maintain positive mental health in order to partake in prayer and other religious obligations.
Primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder, also known as purely obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder, is a lesser-known form or manifestation of OCD. It is not a diagnosis in the DSM-5. For people with primarily obsessional OCD, there are fewer observable compulsions, compared to those commonly seen with the typical form of OCD. While ritualizing and neutralizing behaviors do take place, they are mostly cognitive in nature, involving mental avoidance and excessive rumination. Primarily obsessional OCD takes the form of intrusive thoughts often of a distressing, sexual, or violent nature.
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and feels the need to perform certain routines (compulsions) repeatedly to relieve the distress caused by the obsession, to the extent where it impairs general function.
What was previously known as melancholia and is now known as clinical depression, major depression, or simply depression and commonly referred to as major depressive disorder by many health care professionals, has a long history, with similar conditions being described at least as far back as classical times.
Just Checking by Emily Colas is an account of her experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Divided into four sections, Colas provides snapshots of her life in a journal like manner. The text conveys her emotions regarding the disease throughout her entire life including her childhood and her role as a mother herself.
Disability is poorly documented in the Middle Ages, though disabled people constituted a large part of Medieval society as part of the peasantry, clergy, and nobility. Very little was written or recorded about a general disabled community at the time, but their existence has been preserved through religious texts and some medical journals.
The Lovesick Maiden is a c. 1660 oil-on-canvas genre painting by Jan Steen. It shows a young woman suffering from love-sickness surrounded by her doctor and a maid-servant. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Morbidlove was a term used in psychiatric texts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It referred to what was becoming more commonly described as sexual perversion or pathology. It was a term inspired by decadent French fiction, especially the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, and Rachilde.
Frank Tallis is an English author and clinical psychologist, whose area of expertise is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He has written crime novels, including the collection of novels known as the Liebermann Papers, for which he has received several awards, is an essayist, and – under the name of F.R. Tallis — has written horror fiction. The Liebermann novels have been adapted by Stephen Thompson into the BBC TV series Vienna Blood, which first aired in 2019.
Mental illness in ancient Rome was recognized in law as an issue of mental competence, and was diagnosed and treated in terms of ancient medical knowledge and philosophy, primarily Greek in origin, while at the same time popularly thought to have been caused by divine punishment, demonic spirits, or curses. Physicians and medical writers of the Roman world observed patients with conditions similar to anxiety disorders, mood disorders, dyslexia, schizophrenia, and speech disorders, among others, and assessed symptoms and risk factors for mood disorders as owing to alcohol abuse, aggression, and extreme emotions. It can be difficult to apply modern labels such as schizophrenia accurately to conditions described in ancient medical writings and other literature, which may for instance be referring instead to mania.
